08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 578 |NotleastsinceOrwells1949visionofanaggressively invasive authoritarian 1984, oursense of the future and increasingly of thepresenthasbeenmarkedbythefearofbeing watched, controlled, and robbed of ourprivacy. Indeed, one could argue that one ofthehallmarkcharacteristicsoftheearlytwenty-first century is precisely the realizationofOrwellsworstnightmare(andthisevenwhere, as in the United States post 11 Sep-tember,itisbeingincreasinglywelcomedwith enthusiasm rather than alarm). In formsranging from the more obvious closed-circuittelevision (CCTV) observation to the more in-sidious (because largely unrecognized) digitalinformation tracking known as dataveillance(whichcoverseverythingfromsupermarketpurchases to cell-phone usage and internet-surfingpatterns)surveillancehasbecomean issue that is not only increasingly a part ofThomas Y. Levin__ Rhetoric of the Temporal Index:Surveillant Narration and the Cinema ofReal Time| 5791 _ Yet another print ad points out that Only 1 out of every 10 New Yorkers who owns a telescope isinterested in Astronomy. 2 _ An Appraisal of Technologies for Political Control, European Parliament: Directorate Generalfor Research, Luxembourg; Scientific and Technological Options Assessment, February 1998.used to examine civilian targets as well.As the report explains, all five participatingcountriesprovidedictionariesofkey-words,phrases,andnames,andarethen automatically provided with full-texttranscriptions of all tagged intercepts usefulnotonlyincombatingterroristsbutalso,forexample,whennegotiatingtrade agreements.Evenseeminglyharmlesstechnologysuch as traffic control systems can be easilyrefunctionedforsurveillantpurposes,aswasevidencedbytheaftermathoftheclashes on Tiennamen Square. The Siemens-Plessy video-traffic monitoring system thatserved operation on the square was used toidentify virtually all of the student leaders,in that the images from the video cameraswere broadcast on state television until alltheindividualshadbeendenounced.Asimilar traffic control system was recentlyexportedtotheTibetancityofLhasa,althoughithasnotrafficcongestionproblems whatsoever. The key conclusion,asarticulatedinthereport,issimplythatdemocraticaccountabilityistheonlycriterionwhichdistinguishesamoderntrafficcontrolsystemfromanadvanceddissident capture technology. Such trafficcontrolsystemsareinnocuous,however,when compared with the newest generationof gadgets, such as the Danish stroboscopiccameraJai,whichcanshoothundreds ofphotographsinsecondsandthuscaneasilyproduceindividualrecordsofallparticipants in a demonstration; new para-bolic microphones can clearly capture con-versationstakingplaceuptoakilometeraway, and the German firm PK Elektronikhas recently introduced a laser version thatcan pick up any conversation in the line ofsight even through closed windows. As arecentarticleintheNewYorkTimesputit:ifyoucanseetheEmpireStateBuilding,wecansee,hear,andaboveall record you. Lesssecret-agentincharacterbutequallydisturbingisthefactthattele-everyones daily life, but is even embracedas such. Advertising always a very sensi-tivesocialbarometerhasnotfailedtonote this fact, as evidenced by a Manhattanbillboard touting clothing that reads: OnanaveragedayyouwillbecapturedonCCTV cameras at least a dozen times; areyou dressed for it?1Thesedynamicsofomnipresentvoy-eurism, observation, and data tracking areby no means limited to the United States,as was detailed in the fascinating report AnAppraisal of Technologies for Political Controlpresented to the European Parliamentin1998.2Reading this sober and systematiccatalogueofawiderangeofdevicesandpractices used to maintain power the ex-tended treatment of surveillance is just onechapterofthislengthydocumentonerealizesthatwhatmightpreviouslyhavebeen dismissed as wild conspiracy theoryisoftennotonlytrue,butinmanycasesmoreextensivethanonecouldeverhaveimagined.Inthewakeoftheendofthecoldwar,soitisexplainedhere,formermilitary suppliers have begun increasinglyto furnish the so-called private sector, justas new technologies combined with intra-state arrangements have made it possibletoautomaticallyscantelexes,telegrams,faxes,e-mailandeventelephoneconver-sations for key words and then store themselectively. A task that previously as in theGerman Democratic Republic required500,000 secret informants of which up to10,000wereneededjusttolistenandtranscribetelephoneconversations,cannowbedonefullyautomatically.Indeed,thisispreciselythemissionofthein-famous ECHELON Project, a cooperativeglobalsurveillanceventureoftheUSA,Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, andAustralia (discussed in detail elsewhere inthisvolume),thatsniffsallthedatatraffic i.e., virtually all satellite-telephone,internet, fax, and e-mail traveling betweentheIntelsatsatellites.Initiallydevelopedfor military purposes, it is today routinely08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 580 |Thomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal Index3 _ The Super Bowl story was first reported by Robert Trigaux (Cameras scanned faces for crim-inals, in St. Petersburg Times, 31 January 2001) and then picked up by the Los Angeles Timeson 2 February 2001 (Criminal Faces in the Crowd still elude Hidden ID Cameras Security). Fora useful introduction to the subject, see the special section on Biometrics: The Future of Identi-fication in the February 2000 issue of Computer, esp. 46.IKONOSsatelliteimagingservice:whilethis new generation of devices does indeedincrease the resolution of satellite imagesavailable on demand to the civilian popu-lation from the previous ten-meter standardof the SPOT satellites to a long-awaited onemeter resolution, it should be kept in mindthat the military reserves for itself levels ofresolutionthatareordersofmagnitudemore precise than what is available to thepublic (some experts speculate that it couldnow be as low as 3cm).One should also trytoimaginetheconsequencesofthenextgenerationofterrestrialsurveillancetechnologieswhichwillcapitalizeontherapidlydevelopingfieldofbiometrics,allowing for the automated recognition ofindividualsbymeansoffacialorocularanalysisthefamousretinalscanal-readyintrialuseatsomebank-tellermachines.Combinedwiththevideosur-veillancesystemsalreadyinplace,suchtechnologywillallowfortheautomatic,continuousremoteidentificationandtracking of individuals in nearly all spaces,both public and private, a distopian scenariowhose consequences were already exploredin detail in Gattaca (Andrew Niccol, 1997).Whilethistwenty-first-centurypanopticscenarioisnotyetquiteareality,itmaybecome that much sooner than one mighthaveimaginedonlymonthsago:inthewakeofthe11Septemberattacks,thejustified controversy that accompanied thetrialintroductionsofautomatedfacial-recognition technology at the Super Bowland in Tampa in early 2001 has given way toa more uncritical embrace of such systems.3In this context, the legislative debates abouttheproliferationanduseofostensiblyneutralsurveillanceareofcrucialand growing importance. Regulation ofsuchsurveillancediffersdramaticallyfrom country to country: while the use ofCCTV systems in public space is severelyconstrainedinsome(suchasDenmarkandGermany),inothers(suchasGreatBritain)itremainsvirtuallyunchecked.phone systems based on the ISDN protocolarenotonlyoptimizedtodeliverdatatoECHELON-likesniffersystems,butalsoallow one to take any phone off the hookwithoutitringinginordertolistenintoany domestic or office space.Credit cardsand new machine-readable passports havelong allowed for the possibility of keepingtabs on however intermittently the geo-graphicmovementsofindividualsre-vealing as utterly warranted the paranoidinstinct that fueled a German grass-rootsmovement years ago protesting the intro-ductionofbar-codesontheirID-cards.Morerecently,theabilitytotrackindivi-duals has undergone a significant increasein terms both of accuracy and of what onecouldcalltherefreshrateofthedata,thanks largely to the proliferation of mobiletelephones and their proletarian beepercousins.Thisfactwasconfirmedinanoddly unstrategic manner by the advertise-mentcampaignforthethen-new(andnow-bankrupt)Iridiumglobalsatellitecellulartelephonesystemwhichread:Trackingapackageshouldntbeeasierthantrackingaperson.WhilemanypeopleintheUSwereawareof,orevenfamiliar with, a very useful service offered,for example, by Federal Express, that allowsonetofollowon-linetheprogressofapackagefrompick-uptodelivery,fewrecognizedthepotentiallysinisterconse-quences of the constant location mappinginvolvedincell-phoneusepriortothenewsoftheassassinationofChechnyasrebelleaderDudayev:areclusivenomadwhose only contact with the outside worldwas by means of mobile telephone, he waspinpointed and killed by using the triangu-lating location signals of his cell phone asa very effective homing signal for a rocket(a conceit subsequently taken up as a keynarrativedeviceinthefilmCharliesAngels [McG, 2000]).If this seems disturbing, consider theimplicationsofthemuch-publicizedlaunching in the summer of 1999 of the| 581certain rhetorical functions of surveillancein recent cinema, is proffered as an exem-plary case study of a dynamic that can andshould be explored across numerous othermedia as well.The relationship between cinema andsurveillance is both long and complicated.Indeed one could argue that employee sur-veillance plays a key role in the very birthof the medium since, no matter what elseitis,LouisLumieres1895LaSortiedesusinesLumire isalsothegazeoftheboss/owner observing his workers as theyleavethefactory.Earlycinemaisrepletewith micro-dramas of surveillance in whichpeoplearefollowedandrecordedusingboth visual (photographic/cinematic) andacoustic (gramophonic) means. In light ofthePanopticonsarticulationofpowerinfundamentally ocular terms, it is also hardlysurprisingthatsomeofthebestdocu-mentation of carceral spaces can be foundinHollywoodscenesshotonlocationinfamous prisons, foremost among them thelegendary sequence in Call Northside 777 ofJimmy Stewart walking along the rampartsof the Illinois State Penitentiary in State-ville.Besidesamerelythematic concern,however, as narrative means gain in struc-tural sophistication surveillance becomesone of the topoi of a certain kind of inter-medially-displacedcinematicreflexivity,asisevidentforexampleinFritzLangsDr.Mabusefilms,inAlfredHitchcocks1954 Rear Window or in Michael Powells1960PeepingTom.IfinPowellslong-unrecognized masterpiece one can alreadysee the beginnings of a slippage betweenthediegeticsurveillantgaze(theviewthrough the photographers super-8 view-finder)andtheluridscopophiliaoftheSimilarly,theabilityofthird-partycyber-entrepreneurstotrackoneson-lineactivitiesandsellsuchdatatopotentialadvertisers and other vendors is currentlythe basis for a major regulatory dispute onthe politics of data privacy between Europe,wheresuchactivityismuchmorehighlycircumscribed,andtheUnited States,where the government of cyberspace isleftlargelytothedynamicsofanun-restrained market logic. Thereisalso,however,anotherarenainwhichthepoliticsofsurveillancearecurrently being negotiated and that is, notsurprisingly,thedomainofculturalpro-duction.Whileatleastonewidelyusedclass of surveillance devices the EMHC(electronicallymonitoredhomeconfine-ment) ankle or wrist bracelets used to trackthemovementofpeopleunderhousearrestwasinventedbyajudgeinNewMexicowhofreelyadmitsthattheideacame from a 1979 Spiderman comic book,fewanalystsofsurveillancehaverecog-nizedthedegreetowhich,parallelwiththese crucial regulatory disputes, popularopinion i.e., general attitudes toward sur-veillanceanditsdangersisalsobeingarticulated through, and in important waysalso being shaped by, various forms of so-called high and low culture. Indeed, asocio-politicalunderstandingofsurveil-lance at the dawn of the new millenniummust also include an analysis of the strik-ing proliferation of the rhetorics of surveil-lanceatboththethematicandtheformal level in virtually all contemporarymedia ranging from cinema and televisionto cyberspace. As this is obviously beyondthescopeofthisparticularessay,thefollowing analysis, which concentrates onCall Northside 777USA: Henry Hathaway1948, black-and-white,111 min videostills from LaserDiscTwentieth Century Fox 08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 582 |engagingin(mostlyaudio)surveillance,thisdeeplyparanoidmansuddenlyismadeawarethathisownspacehasalsobeenbugged.Desperatetofindthetech-nological implant that has made it possibletodotohimwhathenormallydoestoothers,heliterallydeconstructshisplaceobject by object, floorboard by floorboard,untilfinally,havingfailedtolocatethedevice,wefindhimsitting,exhausted,amidstthetrashedruinsofhisviolatedprivacy. Although he has dismantled everysingle artifact, tested every appliance, andripped down every piece of wallpaper, thebug he so desperately seeks has eludedhim.Butitisrightthereinthefilmsfinalsequence,anextendedhigh-angleshot, that slowly surveys the extent of thefutiledamage.Beginninginanemptycorner, it pans slowly and methodically tothe left until it captures the broken, saxo-phone-playingman,andthencontinuesonpasthimuntil,havinghitanothercorner,itsuddenlyandsomewhatjerkilyreversesitselfandpansback,andthenback again. Just as the sound is a semio-ticallyconfusingblendofthediegetic(Harryssax)andtheextra-diegetic(thepiano which is accompanying him), thestructure of this shot itself stages a similarblurring in that its formal signature theframe narration itself, the two are neverthe-less always clearly distinguishable thanksto various consistent cues such as the grainand patina of the image, the visible frameoftheviewfinder,thewhirringsoundofthe camera, etc. This decidability, the abilitytodifferentiate diegeticsurveillancefrom(for lack of a better term) an extra-diegeticbutalsosurveillantnarration,becomesincreasingly undermined over the next fewdecades until, by the late 1990s, for reasonsthat will become clearer below, cinematicnarration could be said, in many cases, tohave effectively become synonymous withsurveillant enunciation as such.A most striking and proleptic instanceofthemoveawayfromathematic toastructural engagementofsurveillanceoccursinthefinalsequenceofwhatisperhapsthe classicsurveillancefilmperse:FrancisFordCoppolasmagisterialTheConversation,madein1974.Inthisexplorationofpanopticalhermeneutics,surveillanceisnolongersimplyanocca-sional formal strategy used to differentiatecertainimagesfromothers,buthasbe-comethemoviesprimarynarrativeconcern.InthefilmsverylastsceneweencounterthemastersnoopHarryCaul(playedbyGeneHackman),playinghissax at home. Having spent the entire filmThomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal IndexThe ConversationUSA: Francis FordCoppola1974, color, 113 minvideostills from DVD Paramount Pictures | 583more significant of these is a major changein the rhetorical claims of the photograph.Over the last two decades the status of thephotographwhichwas,atleastuntiltheveryrecentintroductionofall-digitalprojection, the material basis of cinemassemiosis has undergone a radical trans-formation.Justasthephotographwas(andinsomesensestillis)apowerfulsignifyingartifactbecauseitisanimageof which one can usually say that it is animageof something,sotootheepiste-mologyoftherealism,oftheeffectofthe real produced by classical continuityediting in film is fundamentally based onthereferentialsurplusvalueofphoto-chemicalindexicality.Butintheageofdigital imaging, the basis of that compel-lingbutadmittedlynotunproblematicreferentialityhascomeunderseverepressure: to put it succinctly, if in previouseras, photographs could be introduced asunproblematicevidenceinacourtroom,intodayspost-Photoshopera,nophoto-graph would dare to claim such unabashedevidentiarystatus.OfcoursePhotoshoponly made more easily and widely availablethe manipulation of photographic signifi-cationthatwasalwaysalreadypossible(and which is amply evident in the historyofpoliticallymotivatedphoto-imagere-mechanical back-and-forth pan reveals itto be the surveillant device that Harry is sodesperatelytryingtouncover.Butwhereis this thing located? It cant be in hisapartment since the veteran expert wouldhave long since discovered it: indeed Harrywillneverfindthesurveillantdevicebecause it resides in a space that is episte-mologically unavailable to him within thediegesis:surveillancehasbecometheconditionofthenarrationitself. Inotherwords,thelocusofsurveillancehasthusshifted, imperceptibly but decidedly, awayfrom the space of the story, to the very con-dition of possibility of that story. Surveil-lance here has become the formal signatureofthefilmsnarration.Andindeed,itisthisambiguitybetweensurveillanceasnarrative subject, i.e., as thematic concern,andsurveillanceastheveryconditionorstructureofnarrationitself thatwillbecomeincreasinglycharacteristicofthecinema of the 1990s.Besidesobvioussocio-politicaldevel-opments such as the Cold War or Water-gate that have sparked renewed interest inissuesoftrackingandcontrolatvarioushistorical junctures, there are also a numberofmedia-historicaloverdeterminationsthatgoverntheshifttosurveillanceasaformofcinematicnarration.Oneofthe08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 584 |to crop up in numerous more commercialfilmsofthesameperiod.Revisitingthelong standing question of the documentaryandthereferentialstatusofthephoto-graphthatwassodelicatelyexaminedinAntonionis Blow Up (1966), a 1999 JoelSchumacher film entitled 8mmagain takesupthekeyquestionofreferentiality,butnowdisplacednotontothestillphoto-graph but onto the small-format celluloidstrip.Theissueisraisedwhenawealthyoldmandiesandhiswidowfindsinthehome safe, alongside various other docu-ments,amysteriouscanisterofasthetitleindicates8mmfilmwhich,toherhorror,seemstobeaninstanceoftheapocryphal genre of the snuff film, thatultimateinstanceofphoto-chemicalref-erentialityinwhichactsoftortureandmurder are supposedly caught on film.The challenge for the films hero, a privateinvestigator played by Nicholas Cage, is toestablishwhetherthisparticularfilmisfact or fiction, whether the images have anactualbasisintheso-calledrealworld,whetherthegirlshownbeingmistreatedand ultimately killed in these frames, andher masked brutalizers, were all actors or,infact,asthefilmrepeatedlyexplains,real. The films central narrative concern,inotherwords,iswiththeissueofcelluloidreferentiality.Notsurprisingly,NicholasCagesextensiveforaysintothesado-masochisticpornographicunder-worldonlyconfirmthatwhatthefilm-within-the-filmseems todepictisinfactreal,i.e.,thatfilmisnotonlyavehicleforstorytellingbutalsoamediumthatdocuments,thatchronicleswhatactuallyhappensintheworld,howeverhorrific.And of course this discovery, in turn, cannotbuthaverhetoricalsurplusvalueforthereality effect of the frame narrative.If, as seems to be the case, contempo-rarycinemahasclearlyregisteredtherhetoricalconsequencesofthesemioticdeflationofitsphotogrammaticindexi-cality, one of the most striking (and oddlyvisionismsuchasthatpracticedbyair-brush masters on both ends of the politicalspectrum). Still, the rhetorical consequen-cesofthenowincreasinglywidespreadrecognition of the photographic surface asa text, as a construct that is (if at all) onlyoccasionally and by no means necessarily involved in strict indexical reference, arenot to be ignored. Indeed, they are nothingshort of an obsession in that locus of thesocial construction of vision which is con-temporary commercial cinema. For if oneofthemanythingsatstakeinso-calledHollywoodfilmiswhatonecouldcallacontinuousandconstantlyre-negotiatedgeneralizedpedagogyofverisimilitudefilms both teach us how to see the worldandregisterageneralsenseofhowourculture isdoingexactlythatthenonecanlookatthedevelopmentofrecentcinemaasthelatestchapterinalonghistoryofthechangingtechnologicalrhetorics of simulation. As an example of the increasing anxietyaboutthedecliningrhetoricalstatusofphotographicreferentiality,considerthemuch-toutedDogma95projectwhoseonlyoccasionallyironicandoftenquitehumorlesslyneo-vritdiscoursemustbe understood against the background oftheriseofspecialeffects,itselfanothername for the aesthetico-semiotic specificityofthepost-indexicalimage.Norshouldone forget that Dogma 95 is almost exactlycontemporarywiththethorough-goingappropriationandunderminingoftheformal vocabulary and characteristics (thesignaturejerky-cameralook)ofcinemavritbytheBlairWitchProject (DanielMyrick&EduardoSnchez,1999).Thelure of this fascinating recasting of vritas thriller idiom was precisely the undecid-ability, the unreadability of the genre: is itvrit or isnt it? But this question is effec-tivelythequestionaboutthereferentialstatusofthecinematicimage,ofhowtoread an image, a style, a formal signature.Not surprisingly, similar issues also beginThomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal Index| 585JustasinBlowUp thetruthofthephotograph is in some sense a function ofitsnon-orextra-intentionalstatus(thephotographerdoesnotwitnessthemurderthathiscamerahappenstocapture on film), there is a type of surveil-lance invoked by cinema whose narrativefunction depends on its status as a record-ing produced by an automated device, i.e.,one not governed by any sort of intentionalagency.Amoststrikingexampleispro-vided by the opening scene, even prior to thecredit sequence, of the 1993 film by Allen& Albert Hughes called Menace II Society:twoyoungmenofcolorenteraKoreangrocery in South Central L.A. to get a drinkandareimmediatelykeptundervigilantscrutinybythemistrustfulstoreowners.Annoyed by what they perceive to be a racistpractice of interpersonal surveillance, theygettheirbeersandareontheirwayoutwhenthemanbehindthecashregistermuttersaninsultthatenragesoneofthem, provoking an altercation that culmi-nates with the kid shooting him to death.However, before then going on to also killthewife,theyouthforceshertogowithhim to the back room of the store where hecommands her to give him the videotapefrom the surveillance camera. It is worthnotingthat,withtheexceptionofapara-overlooked) responses is the increasing turnto another regime of visual representationwhichdoesnotseemtosufferfromthesamereferentialundermining:surveil-lance. When one sees what one takes to bea surveillance image, one does not usuallyask if it is real (this is simply assumed)but instead attempts to establish whethertherealthatisbeingcapturedbythecameraisbeingrecordedorissimplyaclosed-circuit real time feed. This is pre-ciselywhatgivesthesesortsofimagestheir semiotic appeal. If the unproblematicreferentialityofcinematicphotogramsisunder siege, it makes great sense to startappropriatingatypeofimagingcharac-terized by definition (at least according toa certain popular understanding) in termsofitsseeminglyunproblematic,reliablereferentiality.Surveillanceimagesarealwaysimagesof something(evenifthatsomethingisveryboring)andthustheturn to surveillance in recent cinema canbeunderstoodasaformofsemioticcom-pensation. Itisimportant,however,tounderstand the specificity of this rhetoricalresponse, since the history of the invoca-tion of surveillance in narrative cinema isitself marked by a theoretically significantshift from surveillance as recorded observa-tion to surveillance as real-time transmission.Menace II SocietyUSA: Allen & AlbertHughes1993, color, 104 minvideostillsNew Line Productions 08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 586 |and white snuff film. Leaving aside the factthat the obvious success of this fixed high-angle single-take film provokes the leadto insist that he is going to start selling itfor$59.95surveillanceeffectivelypro-vidingJedermann withtheirmomentofmediafamealaWarhol,albeitreducedfrom fifteen minutes to fifteen seconds what is crucial is that the footage functionsas a form of diegetic flashback that buttres-sesthefilmsownnarrativeoperations.Therealityoftheopeningsceneisestablished later by the fact that we see itagain, but this time through the eyes of theunseen but implied diegetic surveillancecamerawhichnowshowsusdifferentaspectsofthesameevents.Butthissur-veillant perspectivalism, this revisiting orplaybackofanearliermoment,isonlypossible because of the specific materialityofthesurveillanceasarepeatable,co-modifiable videotape.The function of surveillance in a scenefrom Ridley Scotts 1991 film Thelma andLouise isatoncedifferentyetstrikinglysimilarinitsnarrativeoperationtothissequencefromMenaceIISociety.Thescene begins when the two women namedinthefilmstitle,alreadyontherunbutinneedofsomebasicsupplies,stopatagrocerymarketoutinthemiddleofnowhere. While Thelma takes care of theshopping,Louisewaitsinthecarandbolic mirror in one corner of the establish-mentandatightlytrackingcamerathatfigures a general atmosphere of suspicion,therehasbeennoindicationwhatsoeverthat the space is under surveillance: at nopoint do we see a camera or a monitor. Inanelegantexemplificationoftheinter-nalization of a culture of surveillance, late-twentieth-centuryurbanstreetliteracysimply requires that one take for grantedthat such places always have a panopticalapparatusandthisiskeythatthisdevice is not simply a closed-circuit TV butisactuallysendingitsimagestoaVCR.Andindeed,astheyoungmanrobsthedead shopkeeper on the floor, we see thevideo tape that he has extracted from themachinejammedintothebackofhispants.Quiteabitlaterinthefilm,thisvideo then becomes a spectacle of bravado,re-playedattheyoungmanshomewithgreatsuccessforaselectaudienceoffriends, one of whom is very eager to geta dub of what is effectively a silent blackThomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal IndexThelma and Louise Ridley Scott1991, color, 129 minvideostillsMGM| 587obviouslymuchlatersurveillantspec-tatorship is then intercut with the rest ofthe recorded scene until, to emphasize itsmateriality as a recorded video tape, it endsinthevisualequivalentofwhitenoiseoften referred to as snow before then cut-ting back to the two women driving downthe road (the temporal space in which thescenebegan).Thesurveillantimageishere functioning as a memory that is bothpersonal (itisintroducedasThelmasnarrated flashback) and, qua tape, as public(since as a tape it can also be seen by others here the police and at different timesandplaces).Inotherwords,thematerialspecificity of the surveillance tape (with thecrucialadditionofsynchronizedsound)herecondensesinanarrationallyhighlyefficientmannerwhatDavidBordwellwould call an enacted recounting (a visual-izationofwhatweimagineThelmaistellingLouise)andanenactedflashbackwhichtakesplaceatalatertime(themoment when, after the robbery, the tapehas been given to the authorities who areshown watching the evidence of this pasttransgression).IfbothMenaceIISociety andThelmaandLouise exploittogreatadvantagethenewnarrationalcapacitiesofferedbyre-suddenly notices that she is the object ofthequietlysurveillantgazeoftwoolderwomen staring at her through the window.Thisonlyslightlydiscomfortingsocialpanopticism (a mild country version ofthemoreaggressivelysuspiciousgazeoftheKoreangrocerintheghetto)issuddenlyinterruptedbyThelmawhocomesracingoutscreamingthatLouiseshoulddriveoffasquicklyaspossibleasshehasjustrobbedthestore.When,astheyaredrivingaway,anincredulousLouise asks just how she went about doingthis, Thelma responds that she just walkedright in and said at which point the filmcuts to a black-and-white sequence shot bythesurveillancecameralocatedbehindthegrocerycounter.Thisfootage,whichshows us what transpired inside as Louisewaited in the car outside, suddenly changesitsnarrativevoicemidstreamwhichitcan do only because of its status as a video-tape. After only a few seconds, and withouta break in the sound, we cut away from thesurveillancefootage(whichbeganasavisualization of Thelmas recounting of theimmediate past) to a group of astonishedlaw enforcement officers and her Thelmashusband who are watching the (now longpast) event as it unfolds on the tape. TheirSliver USA: Phillip Noyce1993, color, 108 min videostillsParamount Pictures 08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 588 |banal quotidianity of the sliver-buildingsoccupants. Recorded surveillance has beendisplaced here by the cinematic exploitationofthefascinationofreal-timetrackingfrom the secret diegetic panoptical controlbooth.Thesortoffantasmatichyper-panopticsystememployedthereis,ofcourse, increasingly prevalent in shoppingmalls, high-end apartment buildings, andvirtually all gambling establishments. It isthushardlysurprisingtofindthatBrianDePalma(whoseappropriatelyentitledfilmBlowOut hadexploredforsoundrecordingin1981thesurveillantissuesraisedearlierbyBlowUp),setshis1998thriller Snake Eyes in a New Jersey casinooutfittedwithmassivelyredundant,re-mote-controllablePTZsurveillance.Thisstate-of-the-artsystemgetsemployedinthe film as the means by which, followingwhatseemslikeaterroristattack,theslightlycorruptimpresarioplayedbyNicholasCagetracksanelusivefemalecorded surveillance, more recent cinematicappropriations of surveillance tend increas-ingly to harness the narrative dynamics ofa very different sort of monitoring: that ofrealtimeobservation.Thetransitionbe-tweenwhatonecouldcalltwodifferentregimes of surveillant narration is evidentinafilmsuchastheMabuse-remakeSliver (PhillipNoyce,1993)where,unbe-knownsttothedwellersofahigh-classManhattanhigh-rise,theentirebuildinghasbeenwiredforcontinuous,remotePTZ(pan-tiltandzoom)surveillance.Whiletheevilyuppieprogrammerwhoinstalledandexploitsthissystemmain-tains a collection of clandestinely recordedsurveillance tapes of his various amorousconquestsindeeditisjustthesevideorecordings which, as material traces of hissurveillant transgression, ultimately bringabout his demise the bulk of the filmsnarrativetitillationliesinitsbrazenlyscopophilicinvasioninrealtime oftheThomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal IndexSnake EyesUSA: Brian De Palma1998, color, 98 min videostillsParamount Pictures | 589recastintermsof classicalHollywoodnarrative, as is most immediately obviousin the surveillant variation on the familiarshot-reverse shot in which Nicholas Cage,who is down in the casino,is seen from ahighanglelookingup(intothesurveil-lancecamera),whilehiswalkie-talkieinterlocutor in the surveillance booth over-looking the gambling floor is shown in thereverseshotfromalowanglelookingdown into his surveillance monitor. Evenmore striking is the surveillant renderingof one of the most self-consciously artifi-cialdevicesinthearsenalofclassicalnarration: the highly stylized impossibleomniscienceshotwhoseparadigmaticinstanceistheonethatcapturesloversgazing into the flames from a perspectivelocated inside the fireplace. In Snake Eyes, atapointwhereboththeheroandthebadguyareclosinginonthegirlbuthavelostherinadeliriousmazeofendlesslyidenticalhotelhallways(actuallyshotinsuspect,usingthefullresourcesofthecasinos surveillance control booth.HerethesurveillantnarrationthatwasalmostinvisibleinthesubtlefinaleofTheCon-versation becomesforegrounded butinanimportantly ambiguous manner: the filmconstantlyshiftsfrommoreclassicallyomniscient narration to what one could calla diegeticized surveillant omniscience thatis, a spectacle of real-time CCTV tracking. While it could be argued that, becauseit places the spectator in the very pleasur-able(becauseveryempowering)positionoftheCCTVoperator,SnakeEyes servestolegitimate surveillancethroughsubtle,formal means, one could also insist, con-versely,thatbecauseherethespectatorsnarrativedesireissatisfiedbyacameralogicthatisexplicitlysurveillant,thisex-poses a certain regime of narrative cinemaasfundamentallycomplicitwithcertainaspectsofthevisualeconomyofsurveil-lance. Of course, surveillance here is alsogenreofrealityTVasauteuristmega-production, this drama of the encounter ofcontingency and intention, is a most strik-ingexampleofthedegreetowhichcon-temporary cinema is registering and beingtransformed by questions of surveillance,boththematicallyandstructurally.Inyetanother variation of the surveillant recast-ingoftraditionalnarrativeomniscience,herethatdiegeticizedsurveillantomnis-cience is itself a thoroughly foregroundedcomponent of the diegesis the real pre-sentedasaspectaclemanagedinrealtime. Like many others of late, this filmeffectivelycreates(andtosomedegreeendorses) a spectatorial position that is inlargepartidenticaltothatofthesurveil-lanceoperator.Indeed,Iwouldsuggestthatthisharnessingofsurveillanceascompellingnarrationalrhetoricisanim-portantandsociologicallysymptomaticpartofitsappeal.Asanonlyminimallyscripted televisual production governed bythe conditions of the live-broadcast, thediegetic Truman Showcan be read as a pro-lepticvariationonthereality-soapidiomwhose status as a global phenomenon wasquickly confirmed by the contagious successoftheBigBrother formatpioneeredbyEndemol Productions in Holland less thanayearlater.TrumansshowisclearlyTheVenetianhotelinLasVegas),thecamera suddenly embarks on what couldonlybecalledawetdreamofsurveillantomniscience,craningupandoverthewallsofthehallwayinanimpossibleshotthattracksacrossoneroomafteranother as if the ceiling had been lifted off,peeringdownintoeachuntilfinallyitlocates the object of narrative desire. Whatisstrikinghere,ofcourse,isthatwhatrenderstheshotimpossibleisnot thecrassviolationofprivacy,butonlythesequences diegetically implausible struc-ture as a track, an impossibility that fore-groundstheall-toodiegeticallyplausiblecharacter of most of the films other usesofclearlysurveillantnarration.Inotherwords,whatweseehereisthedegreetowhichthestylisticsofsurveillancehasenabled contemporary cinema to displacethehighlyartificial(i.e.foregrounded)classical structures of omniscient narrationinto the diegesis itself in the form of a nowincreasingly diegetically plausible surveil-lant omniscience.WhilesurveillanceplaysasignificantnarrationalroleinSnakeEyes itseemsnegligiblewhencomparedwithTheTru-manShow,the1998PeterWeirfilmchronicling a life subjected to continuousreal time observation. This recasting of the08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 590 |Thomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal IndexThe Truman ShowUSA: Peter Weir1998, color, 103 min videostillsParamount Pictures | 591which one has no control.Furthermore,by limiting the panoptical environment tothatofthemega-studiowheretheshowtakes place, the film simultaneously in-vokes a world of total panopticism but alsoinsists that it is not our world, but only thatof the (hubristic) televisual simulacrum.Whatismostmedia-historicallyim-portant,however,aboutthisparticularmobilizationoftherhetoricsofsurveil-lanceistheclaimthatTheTrumanShowisbroadcastlive.Thefilmsrepeatedemphasis on its real time character is ofcourse a response to a particular conditionoftelevision:indeed,whatmarksthistypeofsurveillanceistheforegroundeddiegetic recasting of cinematic narration asaliveandthoroughlytelevisualmulti-camera production. Moving far beyond thecomparatively primitive surveillance vanusedinTheConversation (andevenitsmorehigh-techvariantinEnemyoftheState [TonyScott,1998],therecentGPS-era remake of the Coppola film), the sur-veillance mothership in The Truman Showisaliterallypanoptical televisionproduc-tion studio. It is here that Christo directsthevastteameffortwhichisresponsiblefor the continuous, real time drama that isTrumanslifeanditsliveglobalbroad-cast. One can begin to understand why thefilm goes to such lengths to point out thatitsproductiontakesplaceinrealtimewhen one recalls that there is a televisualequivalentofthedigitalunderminingofphoto-chemical indexicality: one could callittheanxietyofpost-production.Inthedomainofcommercialcinemathiswasarticulated most ironically in Barry Levin-sonscorrosive1997filmWagtheDog,different in scale: his container admittedlyconsiderably larger (a vast and domed gatedcommunity bounded by water rather thansimplyacarceralapartmentboundedbyfences)andthenumberofparticipantsdecidedly greater (a cast of thousands, asit were, rather than simply a dozen cross-sectional,consentingcompetitors).Moreimportantly, however, it differs in kind: thekey difference, of course, being that unlikethe Big Brother participants, Truman is un-aware and only slowly comes to suspect that his is a life under constant surveil-lance. As the story of his coming to gripswith a fundamentally paranoid world view(the insight that everyone is in fact watch-ing me), The Truman Showfunctions as anallegory of surveillant literacy. But surely itisnotthatwhichmakesthestagingofalife under surveillance such a compellingspectacletotheenthusiasticandworld-wide televisual audience that is repeatedlydepictedinthefilm?Besidestheclassicvoyeuristpleasureofbeingabletowatchsomeonewhodoesnotrealizetheyarebeing observed, what marks the specificityof the attraction of the Truman Show quaspectacle,Iwouldargue,isinfactitssimultaneousflaunting andcontainmentof surveillance. By means of various fore-groundingdevicesirismasksontheimagethatsignalhiddencameras,voice-overnarrationthattellsuspreciselywhichdevice(button-cam,sidewalk-cam,crane-cam)isbeingused,etc.surveillancehereisrevealedtotheeagerdiegeticspectators(andthusalwaysalready also to us) as readable, as recogniz-able and thus assuages the anxiety of aninvisible,unreadablesurveillanceoverWag the DogUSA: Barry Levinson1997, 97 min videostillsNew Line Cinema08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 592 |happeninginso-calledrealtimeandthus by virtue of its technical conditionsof production is supposedly not suscep-tibletopost-productionmanipulation.Thefundamentallyindexicalrhetoric ofcinemaspre-digitalphoto-chemicalpastthus survives in the digital age, albeit nowre-cast in the form of the temporal indexi-cality of the real-time surveillant image.The fact that the temporal indexicalityofrealtimesurveillancehasbecomeanimportant new idiom of cinemas realityeffect in the early twenty-first century isevident not only in the transformation thatthis has effected in the narrative structuresoffilmssuchasEnemyoftheState andThe Truman Show. It has also spawned anentirelynewcinematic,orperhapspost-cinematic,paradigmofsurveillantnar-rationofthesortexemplifiedbyMikeFiggis remarkable film Time Code (2000).Pushing the real-time question already ex-plored decades earlier in Hitchcocks Ropetoanastonishingnewlimit,thefeature-lengthfilmdividesthemoviescreenpermanently into four real-time quadrantsaformalinvocationoftheby-nowfamiliar multiple-monitor surveillance set-up each of which contains a more-or-lessautonomous narrative conveyed by meansofacontinuousninety-minutetake.Eliminatinganytraceofacut,TimeCodeeffectively recasts the cinema as a surveil-lance station where we watch the activitiesof four temporally synchronized real timefeeds.Thefilmwasconstructedusing,asthepublicitymaterialsannounce,4cameras. No edits. Real time. At 3pm on19November1999,sothefinalcreditsexplain,fourcameramenstartedtheirsynchronizeddigitalvideocamerasandeachfollowed(putundersurveillance?)oneofthefourcentralcharacters(orcharacter groups) who, over the course ofthenextuninterruptedninety-minutes,encountereachotherbothacoustically(cell-phone/audio surveillance) and visuallyinwaysthatoftenlinkandsometimesThomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal Index4 _ Mary-Ann Doane, Information, Crisis, Catastrophe, in Logics of Television, Patricia Mellen-camp (ed.), Indiana UP, Bloomington 1990, pp. 222-239.whicheffectivelyunderminedanuncriti-cal belief in the referential veracity of TV byexposinghowthetelevisualimageitselfcan be constructed piece by piece in theage of digital effects. This further explainsthe rhetorical urgency behind the shift inthe cinematic exploitation of surveillancefrom videotape to real time: by means ofits appropriation of the rhetorics of livetelevisual broadcast, cinema has recast itssurveillant images from their earlier statusas recordings which could, of course, besubjected to all sorts of manipulation andwould, as such, not provide the rhetoricalsurplus needed in the wake of the declineof celluloids photogrammatic referential-ity.Oneshouldrecallthat,asMaryAnnDoanehaspointedoutsocompellingly,while cinemas primary category is that ofspace (pro-filmic space, photographic space,narrative space), the semiotic signature oftelevisionis,ofcourse,thatoftime.4Byadopting the rhetorics of real-time broad-castsocharacteristicoftelevisionandacertain economy of CCTV not to mentionthat of webcam culture cinema has dis-placedanimpoverishedspatialrhetoricofphoto-chemicalindexicalitywithathoroughlycontemporary,andequallysemiotically motivated rhetoric of tempo-ral indexicality. Just as previously one com-ponent of the photographs claim to truthwas the belief that, thanks to its mechani-cal conditions of production and its photo-chemical basis it was (unlike other media)notsubjectinthesamemannertothedictatesofagencyorintention,andthatthis lack of intervention within the photo-graphic space at some level guaranteed theveracity of the representation, so too, now,a similar claim of non-intervention couldbesaidtogovernthesurveillantimagebroadcast in real-time. What has happenedhereisthatthespatial indexicalitythatgovernedtheearlierphotographiccondi-tion has here been replaced by a temporalindexicality, an image whose truth is sup-posedly guaranteed by the fact that it is| 593ofitsconditionsofproduction:Forthefirst time, a film shot in real time boaststheslickwebsiteatwww.sony.com/time-code. The films very title not only invokesthe technical means employed to achievethesyncofsoundandimage(and,inthiscase,ofimageandimageaswell);italsopointstothefactthatheretimeisthe key, or code, to both the multi-taskingchallenge posedbythefourimagesandtheir coherence as a quartet. If the rhetori-calpowerofthisfilmalongwiththeother instances of real time surveillancediscussed above are any indication, whatwearewitnessinghereintheshiftfromspatial to temporal indexicality is nothinglessthanafundamentalrecastingofthecinematic medium in terms of what couldbe called a rhetorics of surveillance.brieflymergesome oftheirrespectivequadrants. The product of this remarkablechoreography of real time camerawork andsemi-improvised acting effectively a new(literal)takeonthehackneyeddocu-drama genre and a redemption for a certainauteurismofthealeatoryfascinationofwatching any surveillance installation isa spectacular excess of visual information.Whileonesocularattentionisatsomelevel guided by the soundtrack whose shift-ing volume levels across the quadrants cuetheviewerastowhichisnarrationallysalient at any given moment, the film as awholeneverthelessremainsthoroughlyoverwhelming.InacuriousrecastingofAndr Bazins argument about the truthoflongtake,however,theunambiguouscelebrationofsemioticexcessinTimeCode is explicitly justified as a new form ofrealism,incontrasttothefakerealitysupposedlycreatedbythedistortingselectivity of montage. Despite (or perhapsbecauseof)theseeminglyheterodoxcharacter of its more-or-less independentdigital-video quadrants a visual challengeeven for graduates of the spectatorial bootcamp of MTV hyper-montage Time Codesrealistclaimsarebased,asthefilmspublicity materials never fail to remind us,on the unprecedented temporal coherenceTime Code USA: Mike Figgis2000, color, 97 min videostills from DVDScreen Gems